Melanie Oberlin Knapp, Ashley Matthews, and Rob Willey took part in the Women’s Rights Law Reporter’s annual symposium: Unfinished Business: Breaking Down Barriers to Women’s Success in Legal Academia and Public Interest Law. The journal, led by Editors-in-Chief Genesis Maldonado and Devynn Nolan, hosted the symposium at Rutgers Law School in Newark, New Jersey. Knapp, Matthews, and Willey sat on a panel moderated by Professor Barbara Hoffman, Rutgers Law School, and entitled Inequity Within Legal Academia. The panel also featured Dr. Meghan Dawe, Harvard Law; Dr. Christopher Ryan, University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law; and Professor Amy Soled, Rutgers Law School, who discussed pay inequities in legal academia. Attendees qualified for credit towards New Jersey’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Elimination of Bias CLE requirement.
During the panel, Knapp, Matthews, and Willey shared the findings from their paper Constructing Inclusive & Current Scholarship Impact Rankings, 44 Women’s Rts. L. Rep. 1 (2022), which details the lack of currency and under-inclusion of women in most legal scholarship rankings. (An early draft of the paper is available on SSRN; the final version is available through the journal.) In addition to laying out the background and issues, the group also discussed potential solutions and their plans for new rankings that could offer a more current and complete picture of today’s top legal scholars.
Summarizing the experience, Knapp commented, “It was an honor to present on a gender equality issue for the journal whose first faculty advisor was the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” Matthews added, “This was an excellent opportunity to have an open dialogue with others on the important topic of women in legal academia and public interest law. It was a privilege to participate on the panel.” Willey said, “It was amazing to meet all the people on the journal who worked so hard both to publish our article and organize the symposium. Their team did an amazing job, and I was honored to be a part of such an important and timely discussion.”
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